The governor of Ehime Prefecture in western Japan on Monday decided to green light the restart of one the reactors at the Ikata nuclear power plant in the prefecture, as the government continues its push to bring the reactors idled in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima calamity back online once they've passed stringent safety checks.
Governor Tokihiro Nakamura told the president of Shikoku Electric Power Company that it was ok for the utility to go ahead and restart its No. 3 reactor since it passed the Nuclear Regulation Authority's (NRA) safety screening process in July.
Pending some outstanding procedures and garnering more public support, the reactor is likely to be restarted sometime after January 2016, the utility said.
The NRA, for its part, noted that as the utility works on securing more local support, as both the mayor of Ikata town and the local assemblies have already signed off on the restart, the reactor's restart will go ahead as long as new designs of equipment have been inspected and approved.
The NRA thus far has signed off on the restarting of five reactors across Japan in line with their stricter screening protocols that were introduced following the earthquake and tsunami-triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011 -- a cataclysmic disaster that remains the worst commercial nuclear accident in history.
Two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s nuclear facility in Kagoshima Prefecture were restarted in August and October, kickstarting the government's pledge to improve its balance sheet by bringing more reactors back online and importing less fossil fuels, which have been used during the nuclear power hiatus here to fuel regular power plants.
